Things to do in Southern & Western Puerto Rico
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Playa Caña Gorda
Playa Caña Gorda is the balneario adjacent to the southern edge of the dry forest on Hwy 333 and where the locals come to grill fresh fish, play volleyball and lie around in the shade. The modern facilities are the most developed in the area, including a small shop with cold soda and sunblock.
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Teatro Yagüez
The beautiful Teatro Yagüez would be an architectural icon in any European capital, let alone quiescent Mayagüez, a city that sometimes struggles to assert its understated cultural identity. Dubbed the ‘Cathedral of Sonorous Art’ by enamored locals, the building was the brainchild of Francisco Maymón, the son of Italian immigrants who was an early pioneer of silent movies in Puerto Rico at the beginning of the 20th century. Maymón inaugurated his first theater in 1909, an opulent neobaroque structure that was filled with Italian ceilings and tiles imported from Spain. Hosting opera, orchestral concerts, silent movies and plays, it rapidly became the font of polite societ…
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Museo de Arte de Ponce (Map)
With an expertly presented collection, this commanding art museum is the vibrant heart of the city’s artistic community, easily among the best fine-arts centers in the Caribbean and itself worth the trip from San Juan. Set across from Universidad Católica, about 10 blocks to the south of Plaza Las Delicias, the museum’s expertly curated collection – some 850 paintings, 800 sculptures and 500 prints – represents five centuries of Western art that was donated in large part by former governor Luis Ferré. While typical museum etiquette applies, the intimate spaces are loaded with works presented in a fully bilingual manner, and visitors can get up close and personal to take i…
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Plaza Las Delicias
The soul of Ponce is its idyllic Spanish colonial plaza, Plaza Las Delicias, within which stands two of the city's landmark buildings, Parque de Bombas and Catedral Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe.
At any hour of the day a brief stroll around its border will get you well acquainted with Ponce - the smell of panderias (bakeries) follows churchgoers across the square each morning, children squeal around the majestic Fuente de Leones (Fountain of Lions) under the heat of midday, and lovers stroll under its lights at night.
Even as the kiosks selling lottery tickets and trinkets, the commercial banks and the fast-food joints encroach at the edges (a Burger King and a Church's mar…
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Island Ventures
You can reach Isla Caja de Muertos through Island Ventures. The name - which translates to Coffin Island - seems cribbed from the script from a swashbuckling adventure flick, but the big lizards here run a lazy show, trotting across dusty, cacti-lined trails and over the mangrove marsh. The morbid moniker itself even has a tame origin; it's thought to have come from an 18th-century French author's observation that the island's silhouette looked like a body in a casket.
But the opportunity for a refreshing, day-long escape from the congestion of Ponce is key, starting with some of the best snorkeling around and plenty of tranquil, if somewhat rocky stretches of beach. Day …
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Refugio de Boquerón
The western part of Bosque Estatal de Boquerón carries the name Refugio de Boquerón. It is made up of more than 400 acres of mangrove wetlands, about 2 miles south of town between the coast and Hwy 301. This is an excellent area for bird-watching; more than 60 species are commonly sighted. A number of duck species migrate here in the winter, as well as osprey and mangrove canary. An excellent way to see this sanctuary is to rent a kayak and paddle south across Bahía de Boquerón (Boquerón Bay).
The main office can provide more information and has a 700ft walkway leading into the mangroves. Or stop at Km 1.1 just off Rte 101 and start walking along the trail you see th…
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Most of Puerto Rico’s culinary legends are less than 20 years old, but this salt-of-the-earth grocery-store-cum-café has been here for over a century and a half and is still drawing in punters from as far away as San Juan for a monthly stock up. Cocooned in the waterfront warehouse district, Franco’s is an upmarket place with tables scattered around a glass-topped deli counter in the style of an old English tearoom. Order your lunch from a set menu and you’ll receive a complimentary brazo gitano that goes down well with a cup of fine Puerto Rican coffee. Stocked with assorted condiments, fresh baked goods and opulent hampers, the store affords plenty of people-watc…
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Estación Experimental Agrícola Federal
Strolling is an attraction at the Estación Experimental Agrícola Federal, the tropical agricultural research station of the US Department of Agriculture. and in the adjacent city park known as Parque de los Próceres. These grounds lie just southeast of the RUM campus. At the agricultural station you will see plantations of yams, plantains, bananas, cassavas and other tropical ‘cash crops’ as researchers evaluate new hybrids and species introduced to the island (including a cinnamon tree from Sri Lanka). The gardens have one of the largest collections of tropical plants in the world known to have beneficial effects on human health. The Parque de los Próceres, on the so…
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Museo de la Música Puertorriqueña
This spacious pink villa designed by Juan Bertoli Calderoni, father of Puerto Rico’s neoclassical style, offers Ponce’s best museum experience, and is a must for those interested in the sound of the island. A guided tour of the museum showcases the development of Puerto Rico’s music, allowing hands-on demonstrations of the island’s indigenous instruments. The collection of Taíno, African and Spanish instruments – especially the handcrafted four-string guitar-like cuatros and three-sting trios – and careful explanation of Puerto Rican musical traditions are highlights. The museum also hosts a three-week seminar on drum building in July, and holds traditional con…
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La Guancha Paseo Tablado
One of Ponce's most successful urban beautification projects of the last couple decades was the boardwalk La Guancha Paseo Tablado, commonly known as 'La Guancha,' which lies about 3 miles south of the city center near the relatively lonely Ponce Hilton. Built in the mid-1990s, it's a haven for picnicking families and strolling couples to watch yachts slide in and out of the harbor.
Its chief points of interest include a concert pavilion, a handful of open-air bars and food kiosks, a couple of fine-dining restaurants, a well-kempt public beach and a humble observation tower. Monday and Tuesday are slow, but on the weekends the place picks up with a breezy, festive atmosph…
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Punta Higüero Lighthouse
Nicknamed El Faro, the Punta Higüero Lighthouse dates from 1892 and rises almost 100ft above the terrain. It was restored in 1922 after being severely damaged by a tsunami set off by the devastating 1918 earthquake. The 26,000-candlepower light has been automated since 1933 and still helps ships navigate the Pasaje de la Mona. The lighthouse park is a popular attraction in Rincón.
There are picnic tables, the odd food kiosk and a small museum inside the lighthouse building that displays artifacts from shipwrecks and relays anecdotes from the area's maritime history. The principal reason to come here, however, is for the view. Five great surf breaks are nearby, and somet…
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Parque De Bombas
Ponceños will claim that the eye-popping Parque De Bombas is Puerto Rico's most frequently photographed building - not too hard to believe as you stroll around the black-and-red-striped Arabian-style edifice and make countless, unwitting cameos in family photo albums. Originally constructed in 1882 as an agricultural exhibition hall, the space later housed the city's volunteer firefighters, who are commemorated in a small, tidy exhibit on the open second floor.
Since 1990, the landmark has had a perfect function as a tourist information center - even the most hapless touristo can't miss it - where a pleasant, bilingual staff will sell you tickets for a trolley and point …
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Calypso Tropical Café
Wall-to-wall suntans, svelte girls in bikini tops, bare-chested blokes nursing cold beers, and syncopated reggae music drifting out beneath the sun-dappled palm trees; the Calypso is everything you’d expect a beachside surfers’ bar to be – and perhaps a little more. All that’s missing is a prepsychedelic-era Brian Wilson propping up the jukebox (then again, Brian never could surf). On the ocean side of the leafy road to the lighthouse, Calypso hosts the oldest pub scene in Rincón and regularly books live bands to cover rock, reggae and calypso classics. Not surprisingly, it’s a microcosm of the region at large and the place to go to find out about surf gossip,…
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Galloway’s Bar & Restaurant
Snowbirds Welcome’ reads the sign out the front, but those four-seasoned spring-breakers from Minneapolis you’ve just spied sitting out on the waterfront deck aren’t the only birds pecking at the food. Small black feathered creatures will make a beeline for any spare tasty morsels, so hold on to your seafood crab salad and freshly prepared octopus before it all ends up as bird-feed. Something of a local legend, Galloway’s combines great seafood with a picturesque waterfront setting on Boquerón’s rustic downtown strip. It’s terrific for children, too.
All pretense of being a restaurant is dropped by 9pm on weekends, when a yuppie crowd shows up for live 1980s …
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Reserva Natural Laguna de Joyuda
The heart of the 300-acre Reserva Natural Laguna de Joyuda is a saltwater lagoon a mile long and a half-mile wide, with a depth that rarely exceeds 4ft. The sanctuary is of great importance to waterfowl and other migratory birds that come here to prey on more than 40 species of fish. Humans come here for the same reason.
The reserve is also home to another of Puerto Rico's famous bioluminescent bodies of water, which is like its famous cousins in La Parguera and Vieques but free of commercial tourism. After dark, micro-organisms give the dark water a green glow. Travelers with access to a kayak can launch a nighttime exploration of the lagoon; watch for the access road of…
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Iglesia de Porta Coeli
This small church might not look much, but it is one of the oldest surviving ecclesial buildings in the Americas. Originally constructed between 1606 and 1607 on the orders of Queen Isabella of Spain, it once served as the chapel for a Dominican monastery that stood on this site until the 1860s. The current structure dates from a 1692 renovation and despite its architectural simplicity it retains a dramatic position at the crown of a long, steep flight of steps overlooking Plaza Santo Domingo.
The Porta Coeli ('Heaven's Gate' in Latin) has an interior with ausubo pillars and roof beams, and a ceiling made from palm wood, which is typical of construction in Puerto Rico dur…
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Catedral de Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria
Consecrated in 1760, the city's original Catholic church was replaced by the current model in 1836. The cathedral suffered many blows over the subsequent 100 years, culminating in the 1918 earthquake which destroyed its ceiling, and a lightning bolt that toppled one of its bell towers. Ambitious renovation plans were drawn up by architect Luis Perocier in 1922, but due to lack of funds they were never truly realized. The full refurbishment wasn't actually completed until 2004.
The cathedral now sparkles afresh and survives as one of Puerto Rico's most evocative ecclesial monuments with gilded scenes from the life of Christ behind the altar.
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Tapas Café
Central San Germán has a perplexing dearth of decent restaurants so if you’re staying in town for more than one day you’ll probably end up here at least twice. Thankfully both the food and atmosphere are great, and on a busy night with a little bit of imagination you can picture yourself in the Triana district of Seville. Flamenco and bullfighting paraphernalia adorn the walls, while the plates are decorated with delicious fare such as albondigas (meatballs), queso manchego (Manchego cheese), tortilla española (Spanish omelette) and jamon serrano (cured Spanish ham).
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Ferries Del Caribe
Mayagüez is Puerto Rico’s gateway to the Dominican Republic, at least by sea. Ferries Del Caribe, on the docks of Mayagüez north of the tuna canneries, offers the serious ‘off-island’ adventure across the Pasaje de la Mona. Its massive M/S Caribbean Express sails every other day across the Pasaje de la Mona for Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic (a 12-hour trip). On board you will find a restaurant, cafeteria, bar, casino and disco, as well as conference rooms, private cabins, a sauna and a Jacuzzi. There is room for 250 cars along with 1125 passengers.
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Museum
Contrary to popular opinion, Rincón’s history didn’t begin in 1968 with the World Surfing Championships. Proof lies in this tiny museum, which harbors articles salvaged from shipwrecks and testimonies on the area’s social history. Like a lot of the municipal museums on the island, the Centro Cultural is open irregularly and is dependent on the state of the current municipal budget and volunteerism. Enquire first at the Tourist Information Center; staff there should be able to enlighten you as to current opening times and/or the possibility of a private viewing.
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Cruceta El Vigía
The 100ft reinforced-concrete Cruceta El Vigía looking over Ponce is one of the city’s more reliable points of orientation. The site was first used for a similar purpose in the 19th century, when the Spanish Crown posted lookouts here to watch for smuggling along the coast. Today, the site is on shared grounds with the Museo Castillo Serrallés and a scrubby Japanese garden, but it still offers an expansive view. The $3 elevator ride to the top is optional; the view is probably better in the open air at the base, without the hazy obstruction of grubby Plexiglas windows.
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Museo de la Historia de Ponce
This history museum is extensive for a city of less than 200,000, more evidence of Ponce’s reverence for history. Located in the 1911 Casa Salazar, on the same block as Teatro La Perla, the museum has 10 galleries displaying centuries of the city’s history in ecology, economy, education, architecture, medicine, politics and daily life. A refreshingly Ponce-centric perspective on the development of Puerto Rican culture, the building itself is an architectural treasure that blends typical ponceño criollo detailing with Moorish and neoclassical elements.
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Centro Cultural Museum
Contrary to popular opinion, Rincón's history didn't begin in 1968 with the World Surfing Championships, and the proof lies in the tiny Centro Cultural Museum, which harbors articles salvaged from shipwrecks and testimonies on the area's social history. Like a lot of the municipal museums on the island, the Centro Cultural is open irregularly and is dependent on the state of the current municipal budget and volunteerism.
Enquire first at the Tourist Information Center; staff there should be able to enlighten you as to current opening times and/or the possibility of a private viewing.
reviewed
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Museo Castillo Serrallés
Try a tour of Museo Castillo Serrallés on the same property as the mammoth cross. Docents lead bilingual walking tours dedicated to the Serrallés, the first family of Puerto Rican rum, and their Moorish-style castle. When the somewhat exhausting hour-plus tour ends there aren’t freebie sips of the king-making product, but you can order snacks and drinks at the café and relax on the terrace under the red-tiled roof, enjoying a view of the city below and the quiet burble of the garden’s fountains. A combo ticket with Cruceta El Vigía costs $9.50.
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Casa Alcaldía
Facing Plaza Las Delicias on the south side of the plaza, Ponce’s current city hall started life in the 1840s as a general assembly house but soon became a jail. The last public hanging on the island happened in its courtyard, where you can see galleries that were formerly cells. The building has been Ponce’s civic center for most of the 20th century; its balcony has seen speeches by four US presidents – Teddy Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt and George HW Bush. The waggish head of Carnaval, El Rey Momo, also makes his pronouncements from here.
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